Not once did I close my eyes that night. A kind of fever got
possession of me--a vehement yearning to go on from this first
discovery and find out more, no matter what the risk might be.
The cravat now really became, to my mind, the clew that I thought
I saw in my dream--the clew that I was resolved to follow. I
determined to go to Mrs. Horlick this evening on my return from
work.
I found the Mews easily. A crook-backed dwarf of a man was
lounging at the corner of it smoking his pipe. Not liking his
looks, I did not inquire of him where Mrs. Horlick lived, but
went down the Mews till I met with a woman, and asked her. She
directed me to the right number. I knocked at the door, and Mrs.
Horlick herself--a lean,
ill-tempered, miserable-looking woman--answered it. I told her
at once that I had come to ask what her terms were for charing.
She stared at me for a moment, then answered my question civilly
enough.
"You look surprised at a stranger like me finding you out," I
said. "I first came to hear of you last night, from a relation of
yours, in rather an odd way."
And I told her all that had happened in the chandler's shop,
bringing in the bundle of rags, and the circumstance of my
carrying home the candles in the old torn cravat, as often as
possible.
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